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Welcome! Artfully Musing is a blog dedicated to sharing art and the techniques and products used. I'll be showcasing collage, altered and mixed media art as well as miniature. I hope you'll check back often and are inspired. Thanks for visiting! Laura

I backed the windows with 12
x 12 Clear Plastic for Windows,then glued the windows to the openings. NOTE: I also painted the edges of the window openings green before attaching the windows.

I painted the Icicles
Roof & Winter Trims white,
covered them with Glossy Accents and sprinkled Twinklets Diamond dust on top. I then glued them under the windows.

I added white paint to the corners of
the windows. Next, I applied Glossy
Accents over the paint and then sprinkled white flocking on the Glossy Accents.

NOTE: To create ice and snow, I used three
products; Twinklets Diamond Dust, Fluffy Snow Flakes and White Flocking. All of these products are somewhat
translucent so it is important to paint the surface white first, if you want these
products to look white.

I applied Glossy Accents to various
places on the facade and in a dripping direction from the top roof trim. I then sprinkled Twinklets Diamond Dust on
the Glossy Accents giving these areas the look of ice and icicles. Note: this is the only time (papered area of
the facade) that I did not paint the surface white before adding the Diamond
Dust as I wanted it to look more like ice.

To the top, I added a Snowflake
Border that I painted white and then used Diamond Stickles to accent the snowflakes.

SHADOWBOX

Next, I assembled the shadowbox, covered
the outside with paper and painted the inside a cream color. I suggest using a light color so that once
you attach the façade the open will be bright as possible inside.

I added Christmas themed paper to the
inside; this is the same paper I used for the previous Christmas Ornament project. You don’t need to worry about the
paper going to the edges of the cubbies, as you will not see all of the opening
once you add the façade.NOTE:If you plan to hinge the façade to the
shadowbox, make sure the paper and or paint completely cover the cubbies.

As noted above, once the façade is
attached to the shadowbox, you cannot see all of the area within each cubie. It’s important that before you add the toys, figure out what part of the opening shows through the window. Once I made that determination (by laying the facade over the shadowbox), I added
chipboard shelves.

For the toys in the windows, I used both
3D miniature toys and paper toy images from the new collage sheets.

To attach the toys to the cubie/shelf, I
used foam tape, pop dots and flat beads. Some of the images are attached to the wall, to some I added a flat bead and attached them to the shelf. The 3-D toys are glued to the shelves.

I attached the elves to the front of the
shelves.

Lastly, I glued the façade to the
shadowbox.

The final touches to the façade are the “Santa’s
Workshop” sign, wreath, paper lanterns and the paper soldiers.

SLEIGH

The sleigh is made from a chipboard kit
which I painted red and gold.

I cut two pieces of chipboard, one to
serve as a ledge on the front and one to accommodate the bag on the back.

To the sides of the sleigh, I added
greenery from the collage sheets, metal reindeer from my stash and a Merry
Christmas sign which is at the bottom of this post (that you can download and
use).

The bag in the back is a red velvet jewelry
or gift bag. I stuffed the bottom with
tissue paper. I inserted packages, a
gingerbread boy and a toy sled.

On the front ledge, I added a tray of
cookies and a cup of cocoa. I filled the
cup with brown paint and then added a dab of white paint to serve as whip cream.

TRAINS

The trains are made from a chipboard
kit. This kit can also be used to create
a pull-toy.

I decided to connect two pull toys together for
transporting toys to the wrapping department and connected three together for
transporting wrapped toys to Santa’s sleigh.
Alpha Stamps is carrying all of the cute miniature toys in the windows,
on the train and in Santa’s bag.

I decided that the decorated tree would
look great on a drum base. To make the
drum, I stared with a round paper mache box and a lid from another box.

I painted the middle section red and
each lid gold. To accommodate the ribbon
I added eye pins around the outside of the lids.

I glued one lid to the bottom of the box
and one to the top of the box. The
reason I used a spool on the inside, was to keep the top lid from sliding too far
down on the box.

Lastly, I strung ribbon through the eye
pins.

BASES & POLE SIGN

The bases are made by:

·Cutting shapes from heavy chipboard

·Painting the shapes white

·Painting the shapes with Mod Podge

·Sprinkling Mod Podge with white flocking

I used paper clay to create mounds of snow. I painted them white, and added the
flocking the same way as I did to the bases.

Next, I glued the clay to the bases,
painted them with Mod Podge and sprinkled them with fluffy winter snow.

I glued the trees to the
base and added reindeer from the Winter Wonderland Collage Sheet.
It's easy to add images by cutting slits in the
clay mounds and gluing the images in place.

The pole is made from a wooden dowel,
painted white, wrapped in red ribbon and glued into a clay base. NOTE: To create a hole for the pole, I inserted the dowel into wet clay. Once the clay dried, I glued the pole in place.The signs are from the Elves in Santa’s Workshop Collage Sheet and have clear mini icicle ornaments dripping from them.At the top is a Tim Holtz Salvaged Santa painted with acrylic paints.